


triumph

by frausorge



Category: Persuasion - Jane Austen
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29261511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frausorge/pseuds/frausorge
Summary: When Anne broke off their engagement, Frederick’s first instinct was to get clear away.
Relationships: Anne Elliot/Frederick Wentworth
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	triumph

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RipplesOfAqua](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RipplesOfAqua/gifts).



> Thanks to RipplesOfAqua for the great prompts!

When Anne broke off their engagement, Frederick’s first instinct was to get clear away. He wanted nothing more than to quit the neighbourhood, the county, the very nation that had become the scene of such bitter rejection. He could not leave Monkford as immediately as he wished, but it was not long before he was summoned to his next command, and he departed with an eagerness he could but ill conceal from his brother. 

His object then was to put the entire misadventure behind him. It became a relief to him that he had sent no letters announcing his engagement, neither to his fellow officers nor even to his own sister, and had therefore no retraction to make. When he stepped aboard again, with the deck solid beneath his feet and the strong, cold wind in his face, he felt that all thoughts of Anne must soon be swept from his mind.

For increasing stretches of time, it was so. He allowed himself no indulgence in melancholy reflection, but threw himself with all his strength into his duties instead, training his men into a seasoned crew, capturing a number of rich prizes, and gaining the commendation of his superiors by his energy and diligence. He advanced, in short, exactly as he had hoped to do—and it was in the flush of these victories that the memory of Anne’s averted gaze recurred to him. He could not deny at those moments that her rejection rankled at him still. Each new success reminded him of her lack of confidence in him, in his ability to achieve what he set out to do, and he wished—knowing full well how small and mean a triumph it would be—to see her face when she realized the extent of her error.

The strongest temptation came when he found himself once again in England, after learning that the Laconia was to be his. The thought came to him then that he might write to her, might lay out his improved circumstances and his prospects for more, and try whether they were enough to make her regret her choice. In the end, however, he was too proud to bend his head to make a second plea—and, perhaps, too uncertain that even his increased rank and fortune could sufficiently strengthen her resolve against her family’s pride.

In the following years, he told himself that he must at least learn to think of her more calmly, if he could not cease thinking of her at all. At this he succeeded so well, that the news of Sophia’s having fixed on Kellynch Hall, of all possible houses, as a peacetime home, drew nothing more from him than a short, sharp laugh.

He was to see Anne Elliot again, and he would not shrink from the encounter. He had no cause for shame on his side. Perhaps he might wish to see some on hers; and when the meeting came, and he caught his first glimpse of her, pale and thin in the corner of her sister’s breakfast room, the sight might give him more gratification than it ought. She had not flourished without him; she had reaped the decline she had sown. If he had yet any remaining resentment, it could be satisfied at last.

The more he was in company with her, however, the less satisfied he felt. He could feel the bitter triumph in finding that her hopes of a better match had been disappointed, but he took no pleasure in seeing her neglected and exploited by her family. It was not right that they, whose interests she had put above his and her own, should treat her as they did; that it was left to him to pull the tiresome child off her back when she was being plagued, or to secure her a seat in Sophia’s carriage when she was exhausted. Inconstant and weak-willed she might have been, but her sweet temper and devotion to the comfort of those around her deserved a better return. 

Then came the accident at Lyme—Louisa Musgrove’s determined impetuousness, and all the upheaval that followed—and Frederick had the opportunity to see at first hand the steadiness in Anne’s character, the firmness that she did after all possess, that let her keep her head and act quickly when all others were uselessly overcome. How she shone then! how her strength and resolve and spirit shone! 

By great good luck, the entanglement in which Frederick had involved himself was loosed before it could drag him into too deep a despair, by Louisa Musgrove’s engagement to Captain Benwick. He did not forget to feel his good fortune in that respect. 

Yet the knowledge that he was free to follow where his heart led, only plunged him into new difficulties; for how could he turn his eyes to Anne with any confidence? How could she, now returned under her father’s roof, visiting the Elliots’ most elegant connections, and being courted by her cousin, have any reason to think of him again? Having offered her only silence for eight years, and coldness for the last several months—and oh, for how many slights that had formerly seemed coolly civil did his conscience now reproach him!—what right had he to ask for any warmth from her?

He had no reasons, no justifications to bring forward. He had only hope: a hope whispering that she was not indifferent to him, that her gaze had been sometimes fixed upon him when she thought herself unobserved, that she had refused an offer of more certain prosperity during the time they were apart. That the sweetness of her nature was supported by a constancy which might still sustain his favor with her, despite all that had passed between them. He could rely on nothing, but he might yet gain everything. He had only to drop his pride and go to her as swiftly as he could.

He mounted and turned his horse’s head toward Bath.


End file.
